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by Nordic » Tue Jul 05, 2011 2:59 am
by beeline » Tue Jul 05, 2011 3:04 pm
eyeno wrote:Fraudclosure Watch: Firefighter to Demolish Home Before Bank of America Forecloses After Deceptive Scheme
Entire Cobb Mtn. Estate to be demolished by couple with dueling dozers rather than allow Bank of America to auction it off in the fraudulent foreclosure Ponzi scheme, bogus modification scam now sweeping our nation! An estimated 15 Million homes/families’ lives hang in the balance! We’re all in this together – How are you fighting back?
This was originally posted and flagged down within an hour the first time I posted two nights ago on Craigslist under: real estate and in just 18 minutes the second time I posted it under: free stuff. Please leave this up as it a serious commentary about the very real, current state of our nation!
Hello readers, we are Ana & Robert Somerton from Cobb, CA. We recently received from Bank of America a “NOTICE OF INTENT TO ACCELERATE” and “Options to Avoid Foreclosure”. We’ve been advised by our legal representative that we’re out of legal options/remedies to Bank of America selling at auction our beautiful hand built home of 15 years. Won’t go into great depth or detail here, suffice to say we’ve been run through the Bank of America Hope/Harp/Hamp wringer and hung out to dry. If you’ve been through this, you already know what it means, if not, do us all a favor and educate yourself before responding to this, thanks.
So unless some kind sole comes up with the 24k we are now behind on our mortgage payments, we will most certainly, within the next few months lose our home to the Banksters of America. We have decided that when/if it comes to that we’ll offer our home (BofA once appraised at $350k, Zillow now shows at $133k!) and anything, anyone cares to remove from it, including some very nice expensive Pella doors/windows, kitchen and bath fixtures, appliances and all it’s contents to anyone who can use them.
We’ve also decided that rather than allow BofA the satisfaction of selling/taking our home intact, once everything of value is stripped from it, with DUELING DOZERS my wife an I will take it down to the concrete slab my father built it on back in the early 1990s. Leaving nothing but a smoldering pile of debris in the driveway for BofA to attempt to sell, like an episode of Extreme Makeover Home Edition with no plan to rebuild!
Wish us luck, once it’s done look for the full demolition video under the heading “CA homeowners respond to fraudulent Bank of America foreclosure with Dueling Dozers”. We plan on shooting it from at least three fixed angles with additional cams mounted inside each DOZER for full effect.
Any media outlets interested in an interview prior to and/or covering the day of the demolition can contact us directly. Ana & Robert Somerton 707-245-7541
Anyone who’d like to drive-by, meet the owners, view the home/contents prior to the demolition, our address is: 11784 Gifford Springs Rd. Cobb, CA 95426
This is not a short sale, as we’ll not do Bank of America that favor, also we have no interest in a Deed in Lieu or the few thousand dollars they’d like to give us for the keys to the only home we’ve ever known/owned!
We are extremely hostile to any “BofA tools” trespassing on our property as long as we still own it, violators will be dealt with accordingly!
Editor’s Note: Good luck to the Somerton family! We will report on this story as it develops. To follow this story and many other fraudclosure news reports,
here is our new Fraudclosure Watch news wire: source
http://www.degaray.com/misc/140_Firefig ... _Home.html
by Stephen Morgan » Wed Jul 06, 2011 1:01 pm
(CBS News)
As cities and towns across the country trim their budgets, some of them can't even afford some basics anymore - basics such as law enforcement.
The small east Texas city of Alto, population 1,200, is one such place, reports CBS News correspondent Don Teague.
And now, crime is on the rise.
No one knows that better than Charles Barron.
He has plenty of time now to care for his cattle
.
That's because Barron is Alto's police chief, and no longer has a police department to run.
The patrol cars are locked in an impound lot. The police station is locked, except when Barron stops in to check the mail.
And all five police officers, including Barron, are unemployed, after the city council cut the police budget to zero.
"They put a bulls-eye target on law enforcement -- police department -- and police department only," he tells CBS News.
The council furloughed the police department for at least six months to make up for a $185,000 budget deficit.
Barron says, "There have been accusations that the police department is not generating enough revenue. Well, police departments are not revenue generators."
Now, county sheriff's deputies must handle calls in Alto.
But that means response times that were less than 3 minutes from police are now up to 15 minutes from deputies spread thin over a 1,000 square mile county.
"When you're sitting there needing help, it's a lifetime," says Cherokee County Sheriff James Campbell, who's
among
those who think chopping the police department was a bad idea.
"In the last 24 hours," Campbell says, "we've answered 18 calls in the county; seven of them were in Alto."
In fact, Teague notes, Alto has been experiencing a crime spree, including an attempted bank robbery last month and a rash of burglaries.
Greg Duplichain's construction company was hit Thursday night. It's located -- across the street from the now vacant police department.
"If people know you don't have a police force," Duplichain says, "I believe that some people will take advantage of it."
Alto resident Michelle Blackmen says, "I work at a business here in town and, at any time, someone can come in and rob it."
CBS News tried to interview members of the city council on-camera. They declined, though one said, "When you can't make payroll, you have to make cuts."
Barron says he just hopes to get back to his real job, protecting the people of Alto. "That's my life," he says. ... I miss it."
Alto residents are sending around a petition to try to get their police force back.
And Alto isn't the only municipality to cut law enforcement from its budget. Places from Nazareth, Pa. to Half Moon Bay, Calif. have made similar cost-cutting moves.
by vanlose kid » Sat Jul 09, 2011 4:45 am
Bill Text
112th Congress (2011-2012)
H.R.2411.IH
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H.R.2411 -- Reduce America's Debt Now Act of 2011 (Introduced in House - IH)
HR 2411 IH
112th CONGRESS
1st Session
H. R. 2411
To provide for an employee election on Form W-4 to have amounts deducted and withheld from wages to be used to reduce the public debt.
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
July 6, 2011
Mr. CRAWFORD (for himself, Mr. TIBERI, Mr. FINCHER, Mr. LANDRY, Mr. DENHAM, Mr. DOLD, Mr. FLORES, Mr. GRIFFIN of Arkansas, Mr. AUSTIN SCOTT of Georgia, Mr. HUIZENGA of Michigan, Mr. PALAZZO, and Mr. GUINTA) introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on Ways and Means
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A BILL
To provide for an employee election on Form W-4 to have amounts deducted and withheld from wages to be used to reduce the public debt.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the `Reduce America's Debt Now Act of 2011'.
SEC. 2. VOLUNTARY WITHHOLDING FROM PAYROLL FOR REDUCTION OF THE PUBLIC DEBT.
(a) In General- An employee may elect for an employer to deduct and withhold upon the payment of wages by such employer amounts to be used to reduce the public debt.
(b) Requirement of Withholding- Every employer making payment of wages shall deduct and withhold upon such wages any amounts so elected, and shall pay such amounts over to the Secretary of the Treasury at such times and in such manner as the Secretary shall by regulation prescribe.
(c) Transfers to Account To Reduce Public Debt- The Secretary shall, not less frequently than monthly, transfer to the special account established by section 3113(d) of title 31, United States Code, amounts equal to the amounts paid over under subsection (b).
(d) Definitions and Special Rules- For purposes of this section--
(1) WAGES, EMPLOYEE, ETC- The terms `wages', `employee', and `employer' shall have the respective meanings given such terms under section 3401(a) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986.
(2) AMOUNTS NOT DEDUCTIBLE- Notwithstanding section 170(c)(1) of such Code, no deduction shall be allowed for any amount deducted and withheld from wages under subsection (a).
(3) ELECTION TO BE INCLUDED ON WITHHOLDING EXEMPTION CERTIFICATE- Not later December 31, 2011, the Secretary of the Treasury shall modify withholding exemption certificates (described in section 3402(f)(2) of such Code) to include the election under subsection (a). The Secretary shall include on such certificates a reasonably conspicuous statement that any amounts deducted and withheld from wages under subsection (a) are not deductible as charitable contributions for Federal income tax purposes.
(e) Effective Date- This section shall apply to remuneration paid after December 31, 2011.
SEC. 3. EXCLUSION OF PUBLIC DEBT WITHHOLDING FROM WAGES.
(a) Social Security Taxes-
(1) AMENDMENT TO 1986 CODE- Subsection (a) of section 3121 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 is amended by striking `or' at the end of paragraph (22), by striking the period at the end of paragraph (23) and inserting `; or', and by inserting after paragraph (23) the following new paragraph:
`(24) any amount deducted and withheld pursuant to an election under section 2 of the Reduce America's Debt Now Act of 2011.'.
(2) AMENDMENT TO SOCIAL SECURITY ACT- Section 209(a) of the Social Security Act is amended by striking `or' at the end of paragraph (19), by striking the period at the end of paragraph (20) and inserting `; or', and by inserting after paragraph (20) the following new paragraph:
`(21) Any amount deducted and withheld pursuant to an election under section 2 of the Reduce America's Debt Now Act of 2011.'.
(b) Unemployment Taxes- Subsection (b) of section 3306 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 is amended by striking `or' at the end of paragraph (19), by striking the period at the end of paragraph (20) and inserting `; or', and by inserting after paragraph (20) the following new paragraph:
`(21) any amount deducted and withheld pursuant to an election under section 2 of the Reduce America's Debt Now Act of 2011.'.
(c) Wage Withholding- Subsection (a) of section 3401 of such Code is amended by striking `or' at the end of paragraph (22), by striking the period at the end of paragraph (23) and inserting `; or', and by inserting after paragraph (23) the following new paragraph:
`(24) any amount deducted and withheld pursuant to an election under section 2 of the Reduce America's Debt Now Act of 2011.'.
(d) Effective Date- The amendments made by this section shall apply to remuneration made after December 31, 2011.
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http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c112:h2411:
Guest Post: Boiling Frog Alert: Congress Wants Automatic Wage Deductions To Pay Down The Debt
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 07/08/2011 14:59 -0400
From Simon Black of Sovereign Man
Boiling Frog Alert: Congress Wants Automatic Wage Deductions To Pay Down The Debt
Folks… you just can’t make this stuff up.
On July 6th, just two days ago, at least a dozen busybody Congressmen sponsored the introduction of HR 2411, the “Reduce America’s Debt Now Act of 2011.” They always come up with fantastic names for these pieces of legislation… and rest assured, the better/more patriotic the name, the more ominous the bill. This one follows the pattern.
HR 2411 states that every worker in America should be able to voluntarily have a portion of his/her wages automatically withheld and sent directly to the Treasury Department for the purposes of paying down the federal debt.
“Every employer making payment of wages shall deduct and withhold upon such wages any amounts so elected, and shall pay such amounts over to the Secretary of the Treasury…”
That’s right. Uncle Sam is so broke that he wants to give all the good little Americans out there the opportunity to contribute an even greater portion of their paychecks to finance government largess.
Desperate? Hmmm…. Don’t worry, it gets better.
Obviously, if an employee feels so compelled and should elect to have a portion of his/her paycheck withheld, the onus of responsibility is now on the employer to make it happen. The employer has to do all the paperwork, withhold the money, send the payment to the Treasury, maintain the account records, and probably submit to all kinds of new filing requirements.
You can imagine that, if passed, the bill will result in a host of new IRS regulations, complete with a battery of penalties for employers who don’t fill out the paperwork properly, submit filings on time, or make some administrative mistake.
Think about it: if a small business owner has one single employee who is dumb enough to think that it’s his patriotic duty to pay down the debt and decides to contribute $1/month, that owner will have the responsibility for all kinds of new forms and filings, plus submit to new ‘debt reduction audits.’
But don’t worry, it gets even better.
So let’s say there are millions of sheep out there who elect to donate a portion of their toil and sweat so that the Chinese and big financial institutions don’t have to worry about an American default. How does Congress plan on rewarding its most patriotic citizens? By sticking it to them on their taxes, of course.
HR 2411 stipulates that any contribution made to the Treasury in order to pay down the federal debt IS NOT TAX DEDUCTIBLE.
“The [Treasury] Secretary shall include. . . a reasonably conspicuous statement that any amounts deducted and withheld from wages. . . are not deductible as charitable contributions for Federal income tax purposes.”
Imagine this scenario: You make $100,000/year. In a fit of complete insanity, you decide that you want to withhold your entire annual salary to pay down the debt. Hey, you can always move in with mom for the next year, right?
Well guess what– Uncle Sam will gladly take your money… and then STILL expect you to pay taxes on the $100,000 that you earned, so you’d have to come out of pocket with an additional $40,000 or so.
Don’t worry, though. The Social Security and Medicare wages are reduced by the amount that you withhold, making you only liable for state and federal taxes. Seems like a good deal, eh comrades?
There are so many things utterly wrong with his piece of legislation, it’s hard to know where to begin other than by saying that such intellectual and philosophical perversion is only capable of springing from unprincipled sociopaths whose sole capability is the destruction of value.
There’s a great quote from Atlas Shrugged that comes to mind which sums this all up:
“[W]hen you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing; when you see that money is flowing to those who deal not in goods, but in favors; when you see that men get rich more easily by graft than by work, and your laws no longer protect you against them, but protect them against you. . . you may know that your society is doomed.”
We’ve discussed the story of the boiling frog so many times before– a frog, when put into a pot of water and slowly brought to a boil, doesn’t realize that he’s in danger until its too late. I think the boiling frog just got a little hotter. Have you hit your breaking point yet?
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/guest- ... -down-debt
by justdrew » Sat Jul 09, 2011 11:57 pm
Neighbor vs. neighbor as homeowner fights get ugly
As more are unable to pay homeowners' fees, associations pit neighbor against neighbor
Michelle Conlin and Tamara Lush, AP Business Writers, On Thursday July 7, 2011, 4:24 pm EDT
The Inlet House condo complex in Fort Pierce, Fla., was once the kind of place the 55-and-older set aspired to. It was affordable. The pool and clubhouse were tidy, the lawns freshly snipped. Residents, push-carts in tow, walked to the beach, the bank, the beauty parlor, the cinema and the supermarket. In post-crash America, this was a dreamy little spot. Especially on a fixed income.
But that was Inlet House before the rats started chewing through the toilet seats in vacant units and sewage started seeping from the ceiling. Before condos that were worth $79,000 four years ago sold for as little as $3,000. And before the homeowners' association levied $6,000 assessments on everyone -- and then foreclosed on seniors who couldn't pay the association bill, even if they didn't owe the bank a dime.
Normally, it's the bankers who go after delinquent homeowners. But in communities governed by the mighty homeowners' association, as the sour economy leaves more people unable to pay their fees, it's neighbor versus neighbor.
"What the board is doing is trying to foreclose on people to force people out the door," says Mike Silvestri, 75, who stopped paying his dues at Inlet House in protest over what he considers unnecessary and unaffordable assessments.
He and others say there were cheaper ways to deal with the rat infestation and leaky sewage that led the board to order up a costly plumbing overhaul. "They are bamboozling old people. I'm old, but I'm not senile," he says.
In the past, housing associations have gained infamy for dictating everything from the weight of your dog (one mandated a diet for a hound) to whether you can kiss in your driveway (not if you don't want a fine). Homeowners' associations have served as the behavior police, banning lemonade stands, solar panels and hanging out in the garage. One ordered a war hero to take down his flag because of a "nonconforming" pole. Another demanded that residents with brown spots on their lawns dye their grass green.
Now, past the faux regal gates, beyond the clubhouses, many property owners in associations owe more than their homes are worth. Some are struggling to pay their bills after they lose a job. Others have had their pay cut. So they've stopped paying their association dues.
To combat the rise in delinquencies, boards are switching off utilities, garnishing income and axing cable. They are yanking pool passes and banning the billiard room. And, in the most extreme cases, they are foreclosing.
"The treacherous part is that homeowners' associations are acting like a local government without restraints, and they have this extraordinary power," says Marjorie Murray, a lawyer and founder of the Center for California Homeowner Association Law.
Today, one in five U.S. homeowners is subject to the will of the homeowners' association, whose boards oversee 24.4 million homes. More than 80 percent of newly constructed homes in the U.S are in association communities.
And of the nation's 300,000 homeowners' associations, more than 50 percent now face "serious financial problems," according to a September survey by the Community Association Institute. An October survey found that 65 percent of homeowners' associations have delinquency rates higher than 5 percent, up from 19 percent of associations in 2005.
Associations set rules for their communities. They levy monthly dues, typically between $200 and $500, and cover the costs of services that a municipal government usually takes care of: road repair, streetlights, sewage systems. If an association's budget is strained or major repairs need to be done, the board can levy a "special assessment" on top of those dues. And when one homeowner doesn't pay those fees, all the other homeowners have to pick up the cost.
The rise in delinquencies comes as banks are taking over foreclosed homes and then leaving them vacant more often than ever. Taken together, these shortfalls are resulting in higher fees for all of the other homeowners -- and massive financial angst for association boards.
Before now, associations rarely, if ever, foreclosed on homeowners. But today, encouraged by a new industry of lawyers and consultants, boards are increasingly foreclosing on people 60 days past due on association fees, says Evan McKenzie, a former homeowner association attorney who is now a University of Illinois political science professor and the author of the book "Beyond Privatopia: Rethinking Residential Private Government."
The government does not keep statistics on how often homeowners' associations initiate foreclosures. But a nonprofit research group found that association-initiated foreclosures in the Houston area jumped from 500 in 1995 to 2,200 in 2007. Most association-related foreclosures in Texas do not go through the judicial process, so the group's analysis represented only a fraction of the foreclosures that housing associations have initiated.
In exchange for adhering to the rules, homeowners got safe communities with clubhouses, pools and tennis courts. But what many didn't realize when they bought their homes was that the fine print gave the association the right to foreclose -- even over a few hundred dollars in unpaid dues.
All the association board has to do is alert its attorney to place a lien on the property to start the process. The home can then be auctioned by the board until the bank eventually takes ownership. Homeowners typically have no right to a hearing.
"These are banana republics," McKenzie says.
The problems in some communities are resulting in more scrutiny. In Nevada, the FBI is investigating corruption in elections of association boards. In Utah and Arizona, legislators are trying to pass bills that would root out the use of debt-collectors who are alleged to have used thug-like tactics to strongarm residents into paying fees.
State legislatures in California, Arizona, North Carolina, Texas and Florida have taken up legislation that would clamp down on foreclosures.
Not everyone thinks the tactics are out of line, though.
"When people are not paying their assessments, they're not shortchanging some giant multinational corporation. They are taking money directly out of the pockets of their neighbors," says Andrew Fortin, head of government affairs for the trade group the Community Associations Institute.
So the neighborhood feuds are escalating. At Inlet House, one resident claims her fellow senior citizens have turned into vigilantes, vandalizing her car in retaliation for not paying her dues.
In all, 17 of the 60 units are in various stages of delinquency. Paul Gray, a fastidious budgeter, paid off his mortgage long ago and paid all but $2,500 of the Inlet House assessment. The association initiated foreclosure proceedings. A few days after he received the foreclosure notice, Gray suffered another stroke, three friends say. Now he is in a nursing home. He has since paid off the $2,500. His home, worth $89,000 in 2006, is for sale for $18,500.
In the meantime, the board, facing $172,000 in costs from nonpayers, has had no choice but to raise dues by an extra $50 a month to an average of $375. Between the assessment and increased dues, some residents complain that they pay more than they would to rent a plush oceanfront spread down the street at the posh Fontainebleau condo complex. Association manager Janice Stinnett, who is also an Inlet House resident, says she isn't to blame, the nonpayers are.
"It's unfair that everyone is paying extra to cover these deadbeats," she says.
The board is continuing to make the plumbing repairs that made the assessments necessary to begin with. It will soon issue another special assessment to cover the costs.
To homeowners who opposed the repairs on the grounds that they were too expensive, the entire picture adds up to a crime. Says Silvestri, "What these associations are doing is illegal. It's a fraud."
by 2012 Countdown » Mon Jul 11, 2011 3:08 pm
by Saurian Tail » Mon Jul 11, 2011 3:30 pm
Why the Rich Fear Violence in the Streets, By Robert Frank, WSJ, July 6, 2011
Last year, I was at a billionaire’s home in California and I asked him to describe his biggest worry. He pointed to a 19th century painting on the wall, which depicted a female beggar receiving alms from a wealthy gentleman and giving her patron a flower in return.
“That’s what I worry about,” he said. “But instead of flowers, she’s got guns. Violence in the streets, aimed at the wealthy. That’s what I worry about.”
It turns out he wasn’t alone. A new survey from Insite Security and IBOPE Zogby International of those with liquid assets of $1 million or more found that 94% of respondents are concerned about the global unrest around the world today.
Fully 90% of respondents have a negative view of the current global economic climate and 41% say they have little or no faith that the U.S. will be able to right itself in this fiscal climate.
More than a third said security concerns have negatively affected business or investment plans.
“The survey found a seismic shift in the attitudes of the wealthy and how they are living their lives, the way they travel and how they are running their businesses,” said Christopher Falkenberg, President of Insite Security.
Of course, Insite has an interest in getting the paranoid rich to beef up their security. Still, the numbers are backed up by other trends seen throughout the world of wealth today: the rich keeping a lower profile, hiring $230,000 guard dogs, and arming their yachts, planes and cars with military-style security features.
Granted, America isn’t a country conducive to class wars in the streets (even a mention by the President of rolling back the private-jet tax breaks sparked denunciations of class warfare). But at a time when most of the country is mired in unemployment, weak housing prices and a stack of bills from the bailouts, the rich have reason to fear public resentment. And some fear even worse.
http://blogs.wsj.com/wealth/2011/07/06/ ... e-streets/
by Bruce Dazzling » Thu Jul 14, 2011 3:20 pm
You're So Easy to Rule
Arthur Silber
July 12, 2011
My God and gee whiz, the desperate need for debt reduction by the federal government is a terrifying business. I know this must be true, because all our leaders and all major commentators repeatedly tell us so. To a person, their pronouncements are drenched in urgency, warning of doom if we do not accede to their demands.
For example, one very well-known political figure said that Congress must act now or "the economic damage will be painful and lasting." He went on:"The reality is that we are in an urgent situation, and the consequences will grow worse each day if we do not act," he said.
... "And if our nation continues on this course, the economic damage will be painful and lasting."
Barack Obama calls it "an American crisis." He continued:
"To the Democrats and Republicans who opposed this plan yesterday, I say: Step up to the plate and do what's right for this country."
Obama went on to sound a favorite theme of the ruling class when they deign to address their hapless subjects: You're just too stupid to know what's good for you. And what's good for you is what we tell you is good for you, you moronic dolts.
Hillary Clinton took time out from directing the torturing, murdering foreign exploits of Empire to emphasize that message for the worthless peasants at home. Warning of the failure to reach a deal, she intoned:"It sounds dire but there is a risk that commerce could grind to a halt," she said.
...
"[Voters] have to recognize that we are facing a very serious economic slowdown, a recession that could be of long-lasting and deep impact," she said.
Hell, I'm convinced! Raise the debt ceiling! Get those expenditures under control! Slash all the safety net programs! Middle-aged and older Americans have already spent half or even all of a lifetime paying for those programs, but this is an emergency! Everyone has to sacrifice! (Well, not the ruling class, of course, but that's because they're better than we are. That's why they're the ruling class and you're not. And if you don't understand that, you're just stupid. Get it?)
Hey, wait a sec. Oh, gee, I'm sorry. I got confused there for a moment. The above statements were made about the extortion scheme the ruling class rammed through -- in the fall of 2008. I collected those warnings of impending doom in, "Terrorist State, Abroad and At Home." When your preferred, and more and more frequently your only, tactic is terrorizing your subjects -- abroad or at home -- the specifics of the "crisis" of the moment are entirely irrelevant. What matters -- the only thing that matters -- is spreading panic and fear. For a terrorist, terror is the point.
Your national leaders are terrorists. Look on the bright side: they aren't shooting at you or sending drones into your neighborhood. Not yet. You still have that to look forward to, you fortunate idiots.
But most Americans can't or won't acknowledge the fact that terrorists rule them. The ruling class counts on that, and they're absolutely right. Are there millions of Americans camped out in Washington, or even thinking about it? Don't make me laugh.
For the current version of these identical terrorist tactics, see here:"If they don’t act, then we face catastrophic damage to the American economy. And the leadership, to their credit, and I mean Republicans and Democrats, fully understand that,” Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
And here:
"The United States must be strong at home in order to be strong abroad," Clinton said in remarks on the Obama administration's new national security doctrine, which was made public on Thursday.
"We cannot sustain this level of deficit financing and debt without losing our influence, without being constrained in the tough decisions we have to make," Clinton said, adding that it was time to "make the national security case about reducing the deficit and getting the debt under control."
...
President Barack Obama, who pushed through his own huge stimulus spending plan last year amid the global financial crisis, was committed to taking the politically difficult steps needed to put government finances back in order, Clinton said.
"We are in a much stronger economic position than we were. And that matters. That matters when we go to China. That matters when we try to influence Russia. That matters when we talk to our allies in Europe," Clinton said.
Gotta love the Clinton program:
We'll scare Americans to death, and then they won't complain when we destroy their lives.
And then, we'll be strong enough to tell everyone else what to do, while we destroy their lives!
Now, see, I think it would be beneficent beyond measure if the United States lost its "influence" to the degree that it couldn't compel the poorest peasant scrabbling for life on a parched hillside in Asia to lift her little finger. But that's because I'm stupid. Hillary Clinton is smart!
But the ultimate terrorist is not to be outdone:President Obama on Tuesday said he cannot guarantee that retirees will receive their Social Security checks August 3 if Democrats and Republicans in Washington do not reach an agreement on reducing the deficit in the coming weeks.
"I cannot guarantee that those checks go out on August 3rd if we haven't resolved this issue. Because there may simply not be the money in the coffers to do it," Mr. Obama said in an interview with CBS Evening News anchor Scott Pelley, according to excerpts released by CBS News.
The Obama administration and many economists have warned of economic catastrophe if the United States does not raise the amount it is legally allowed to borrow by August 2.
These very smart terrorists want to rule the whole goddamned world. Although I understand why very few Americans are willing to acknowledge this irrefutable fact, the scope of the resistance to facing what is very painfully obvious still astonishes me. After all, domination and control has been the ruling class's goal for over a century. I had many reasons for titling my series of historical essays "Dominion Over the World," and if you read that series (all the essays are listed at the end of that entry), you'll learn what some of them were.
For now, I'll conclude by offering once more the final paragraphs of the "Terrorist State" article from October 2008:The system is now set up so that when the ruling class is particularly intent upon a certain objective, even your obedience isn't required any longer. After all, what are you going to do? Move to another country? Not vote for any of these bastards in November?
Most Americans won't do that. They protest now; once the deed is done, they'll go back to their lives, such as they will be at that point, and devote themselves to making the ruling class more wealthy and more powerful.
To a terrorist government, you're irrelevant, as irrelevant as a slaughtered five-year-old Iraqi girl. But they'll continue to try to scare you to death. You're easier to rule that way.
I suggest you get used to it. This is your future.
At this moment, you might want to reconsider a question I have asked before: Why do you continue to support this kind of system? To the degree you comply with the ruling class's demands for obedience, you are not merely obeying: you are supporting.
Is that your choice?
Is it? Even now?
You don't have to make it so damned easy for them. But oh dear, the inconvenience of even mild resistance!
Never mind.
by beeline » Thu Jul 14, 2011 4:29 pm
by marycarnival » Thu Jul 14, 2011 4:35 pm
by beeline » Thu Jul 14, 2011 4:39 pm
by justdrew » Thu Jul 14, 2011 4:39 pm
beeline wrote:Sorry it's from Fox news, but I couldn't help posting the sheer douchbaggery of Greenspan et al.
Link
Alan Greenspan: It's the Gen-Xers Fault They're Out of WorkBy Elizabeth MacDonald
Published July 13, 2011
FOXBusiness
Former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan said in a recent interview that the U.S. is suffering from an unproductive youth movement in the labor force, and that companies don’t want to hire these young folk. Greenspan also said that U.S. companies would be better off hiring immigrants.
I yield the floor to FOX Business Director of News Ray Hennessey:
Apparently the problem with the American jobs picture is the American worker.
At least that’s what Alan Greenspan thinks.
We are, he says, too young, dumb and unproductive as a workforce. The Baby Boomers were better, finding ways to do more with less, but they are retiring in droves. As they hit the links, their ranks of replacements don’t measure up.
Here are his [Greenspan’s] words, in an interview with The Globalist:
"Baby boomers are being replaced by groups of young workers who have regrettably scored rather poorly in international educational match-ups over the last two decades. The average income of U.S. households headed by 25-year-olds and younger has been declining relative to the average income of the baby boomer population. This is a reasonably good indication that the productivity of the younger part of our workforce is declining relative to the level of productivity achieved by the retiring baby boomers. This raises some major concerns about the productive skills of our future U.S. labor force."
There is, sadly, much truth in what he says. The degradation of our educational system, thanks to a lack of accountability and a general resistance to innovation, is well-documented.
It has been difficult for American students to keep pace with those from overseas when viewed through the lens of quantitative, objective metrics like standardized tests.
But the lack of productivity Greenspan frets over can arguably also be set at the feet of our growing entitlement culture, which we explored in some detail several weeks ago for Entitlement Nation Week. Being a productive worker means having a commitment to honest labor.
That has eroded as more people have relied upon the federal government for the growth of their household wealth. That, in turn, has led to a troubling change in attitude in this country.
As [Pulitzer prize winning syndicated columnist] George Will put it, “Americans, endowed by their solicitous government with an ever-expanding array of entitlements, now have the whiny mentality that an entitlement culture breeds.”
The question then becomes, “How do we fix this?” To Greenspan, it is to “Go West, young man.” Or East, North and South for that matter. Just go anywhere else but here and find someone who is willing and able to work:
"Most high-income people in our country do not realize that their incomes are being subsidized by their protection from competition from highly skilled people who are prevented from immigrating to the United States,” Greenspan said. “But we need such skills in order to staff our productive economy, so that the standard of living for Americans as a whole can grow."
Think of that last line for a moment. We need to import labor – intelligent, skilled labor – to guarantee that Americans’ standard of living is maintained.
Have we indeed fallen so far?
by marycarnival » Thu Jul 14, 2011 4:48 pm
beeline wrote:.
True enough, does that generation behind us even have a nickname yet? Gen Y? Pepsi Max? Something. They are so lazy though, aren't they?????
yeah marycarnival, as per normal, they don't even know the terms. I assume the pathetic Elizabeth MacDonald or her sad editor who wrote that headline, I don't see the "word" X in the article.
by Pele'sDaughter » Thu Jul 14, 2011 6:47 pm
by Bruce Dazzling » Fri Jul 15, 2011 11:33 am
Horribly rich bosses: How do they get away with it?
By WILL BUNCH
Philadelphia Daily News
Fri, Jul. 15, 2011
ONCE UPON A TIME - when the local founding Pew family was still in control - workers at Sunoco's sprawling Marcus Hook refinery joked about working for "Uncle Sunny," the kind of company in which a generous health plan for early retirees was negotiated with a simple handshake.
But today the dwindling number of time-clock punchers at the region's largest oil refiner say that they're so shell-shocked from the loss of 400 jobs at Sunoco's shuttered South Jersey site, a looming pension freeze and news that workers under 50 now won't be getting that retiree health coverage, they cringe at what might be next.
"Your blood pressure is up from the time you check in until the time you leave," said Dave Miller, president of Local 10-901 of the United Steelworkers, which represents some Marcus Hook workers. His union cohort, Mike McLain, nodded in agreement: He was six months shy of his 50th birthday when Sunoco killed off the future-retiree health benefits for its under-50 workers.
But at least one Sunoco employee did all right by "Uncle Sunny" in 2010: its CEO, Lynn Elsenhans.
Elsenhans arrived at Sunoco in 2008 to carry out an aggressive program of cost-cutting. That apparently did not include her own compensation package - which rose last year by a staggering 524 percent, to more than $11.7 million.
Although last year's pay boost for the CEO of the Philadelphia-headquartered oil giant - in an era of salary and pension freezes for so many blue-collar workers - was certainly larger than most, it also highlights a surprising trend.
A Daily News survey of 51 CEOs of publicly traded companies in Philadelphia and its nearby Pennsylvania suburbs - firms in which the leadership didn't change and have reported their 2010 data - found that their average pay raise last year was a whopping 32.6 percent.
Not that Philly's CEOs were hurting in 2009, when their average compensation was more than $3.38 million. But, last year the typical top boss got a raise that topped $1 million, to more than $4.48 million.
Their pay hikes on steroids - including bonuses and other things that you probably didn't get, like stock and pension benefits, on top of base salary - is more than 10 times higher than the average American worker's raise of just 2.7 percent.
The New York Times reported earlier this month that average CEO raises nationally were 23 percent - meaning that Philadelphia is slightly ahead of the curve.
An expert on executive pay - Eleanor Bloxham, of the Ohio-based Value Alliance - has one word for the new CEO pay binge at a time of 9 percent unemployment and cutbacks for everyone else:
"Insane."
"Isn't it insanity to keep doing this, to keep doing what isn't working?" asked Bloxham, referring not just to 2010 but to year after year of outlandish pay raises for top executives supposedly tied to performance - when the overall performance of American companies seems to keep getting worse.
Needless to say, that's not how they see it in corporate board rooms.
"Sunoco's future success depends on us being able to attract and retain the people with the skills we need to help us manage through a very challenging market environment, and our compensation structure, which is competitive and in line with market rates, reflects that goal," said Thomas Golembeski, the company's spokesman.
Golembeski noted that CEO Elsenhans' compensation took a steep hit in 2009, when Sunoco's stock performance was weak, but she was rewarded last year for outperforming Wall Street.
Of course, many of the moves by Elsenhans that boosted the oil company's stock price - like the freeze in a defined-benefits pension plan, which for now affects nonunion workers, or the 400 furloughs of workers at the closed Eagle Point refinery - inflicted pain on her employees, or former employees.
Comcast: Private jets
Officials at cable-and-entertainment goliath Comcast said that Philadelphia's highest-paid CEO - Brian Roberts, who got a 14 percent compensation boost last year to just more than $31 million - was rewarded with a higher bonus because Comcast stock was up sharply in 2010. Indeed, large CEO pay packages are pretty common in the high-flying media business, where most well-known leaders are paid in the $20 million to $40 million range.
Roberts stated publicly at the depth of the recession that he was essentially freezing his base salary at Comcast - $2.8 million last year - but that didn't apply to his entire package, including bonuses.
There are other perks that CEOs get and you don't. The company says that it requires top executives, such as Roberts, to fly on corporate jets - even for personal travel - for security reasons. The Wall Street Journal recently reported that Comcast purchased its third corporate jet - a Dassault Falcon 900, worth $40 million or more - last July. The jet made dozens of trips to Martha's Vineyard or Palm Beach, two vacation paradises where Roberts owns homes.
Although Roberts' 14 percent raise was indeed less than the average CEO got both nationally and in Philadelphia, it's higher than what a typical blue-collar cable technician could expect.
Rich Spieler, a business agent for the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers who handles three units of Comcast employees - the overwhelming number of whom are nonunion - said that the IBEW recently negotiated annual raises for technicians and other workers at one site of 2.9 percent, close to the national average. At another unit in Pleasantville, N.J., where bargaining has dragged on, the company is offering annual raises of just 0.5 percent, Spieler said.
"They are a bad, bad company - they want givebacks on everything," Spieler said, adding that he's fighting proposed changes to overtime rules.
Cigna: 131 percent raise
The growing gap between CEO pay and rank-and-file income is a situation cloaked in irony: Corporate boards and the broader markets generally dole out performance rewards to bosses who raise profits by keeping worker costs down - making income disparity grow larger by the year.
One reason that U.S. companies are able to give large pay packages is that they're sitting on record levels of cash - $1.8 trillion, it was reported last summer - that they aren't using to hire new workers.
There are other ironies. Health-insurance firms, like Cigna - which has been based in Philadelphia but is moving its top brass to Connecticut - suffered at the end of the last decade because high layoffs and steep cuts in worker benefits meant that fewer workers could get insurance.
President Obama's health-care plan - approved over the objections of many business leaders - was an eventual boon to insurance-company stocks because it mandated coverage, and many CEOs reaped the benefits in 2010.
Cigna's CEO, David Cordani, saw his pay spike by 131 percent last year, to more than $15.2 million, which would make him the second-highest-paid CEO in Philadelphia, if he weren't abandoning the city. His performance bonus was increased by 49 percent.
A spokesman for Cigna, Gloria Barone Rosanio, said that Cordani's raise reflects the fact that he was promoted to CEO only in late 2009 and that his 2010 compensation is in line with bosses of similar firms.
Cigna also reported spending $48,733 to install a security system at Cordani's home. Cordani's predecessor, Edward Hanway, saw protests at his house in Media in 2009 from activists angry over medical bills that the insurer refused to cover.
Indeed, some may wonder why more protests haven't been made over the disparity between pay for CEOs and for the middle class - a gap that has grown dramatically since the early 1980s.
According to one study, the typical CEO earned 42 times more than his average company employee in 1980, but that ratio has skyrocketed to 343 times today. And experts say that such high CEO compensation is a major reason income disparity in the United States is the greatest it has been since the eve of the Great Depression - and why the CIA World Factbook says that the wealth gap in America is now far worse than in European nations and on a par with the Ivory Coast or Yemen.
Why rich grow richer
Why do we now have such a great income disparity? Some experts say - in yet another irony - that the sudden decline in America's then-stable, manufacturing-based economy in the 1970s caused board members to wave cash at CEOs who they thought could make firms more competitive in the suddenly tough environment.
During the 1980s, steep cuts in the top marginal income-tax rates on the wealthy - which under President Ronald Reagan went from 70 percent at the start of the decade to 28 percent by the end - also offered a new incentive for higher pay at the top. (Levies on the middle class actually rose under Reagan, meanwhile, because of an increase in the payroll tax for Social Security.)
Leslie McCall, an associate sociology professor at Northwestern University who's writing a book on income disparity in the United States, said that unions - which began shrinking in influence in the 1970s and '80s - had once helped to keep the gap smaller.
"In the 1970s, you had kind of a backlash," McCall said. "The economy had been growing, but then there was this period of decline and employers were able to go on the offensive against regulations and the unions."
McCall noted that despite the conventional wisdom that everyday Americans don't mind high CEO pay, because they hope to get rich themselves someday, most public-opinion voters show that U.S. voters actually aren't happy with the gap between rich and poor. She said that people worry that the rich are gaining an edge in areas like access to college and influencing the political system through large donations.
But, despite public opinion, elected officials in both parties aren't eager to tackle the problem. Last year's Dodd-Frank financial-reform bill included a tepid measure that companies must make public the ratio between their CEO and average-worker pay - and now Republicans who retook the House are pushing to have that repealed.
Bloxham, the compensation expert, said that retail investors have the power to block the most outrageous CEO pay increases through proxy votes, but they rarely do. Currently, shareholders reject executive pay packages only about 1.5 percent of the time.
Most blue-collar workers - told that they're lucky just to have jobs after a recession - feel that they have no leverage at all. At Marcus Hook, the Steelworkers' local leader Miller said that he expects a push to apply the pension freeze to unions, or maybe even to put the local out of business - given the threat of layoffs or replacement by outside contractors.
"You feel like a 1,000-pound brick is hanging over your head," said Miller, who added that workers have lost the sense of security that they felt when Sunoco - originally the Sun Co. - was largely owned by the Pew family that co-founded it back in 1886.
And the idea that blue-collar workers could gain raises anywhere on the magnitude of what the average CEO got in 2010 isn't even on the union's radar screen in Marcus Hook.
Said Miller: "We just want to preserve what we already have."
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